Happy Birthday Baby
by spacegypsy1
Summary: Missing Scene Unending – UNENDING SPOILERS not really….  Daniel’s fiftieth birthday on the Odyssey. DVness.


Happy Birthday Baby

Spacegypsy1

Missing Scene Unending – UNENDING SPOILERS- not really…. Daniel's fiftieth birthday on the Odyssey.

Vala stood in the doorway to the Asgard text room where Daniel spent so much of his time. He hadn't noticed her yet.

Today was July 8th, his birthday, according to the calendar they kept. His fiftieth. Sam said it was 'the big one' and they had planned a surprise party for him. He was much too handsome for fifty! His hair was a little long, his face crinkled with tiny lines, but still he was an attractive man and she smiled thinking about his still young looking body. That hadn't changed in the years they'd been here on the Odyssey.

He wouldn't be happy about the party. But it was for all of them. They all wanted something to celebrate, something to do. Mitchell had set up everything in the hanger bay, next to his beloved 302.

She was supposed to get Daniel to the hanger bay, they were all there waiting. "Daniel?"

He turned with a sweet smile just for her. "Hey. Come on in; stand here with me while I read. It's really interesting."

"And what will you do with all the interesting things you're learning?"

He just shrugged his shoulders. Daniel held out a hand towards her. "Come here."

Vala moved to take his hand. "Take a walk with me?"

"In a minute."

"Now, please?"

He sighed. His eyes went back to the symbols revolving around him. "Sure." He stepped to the console, moved a crystal until all the letters disappeared. "You okay?"

"Of course, I just wanted to take a walk- to the hanger bay."

"The hanger bay? Vala, what's up?"

Her eyes went wide and innocent, "Nothing. I just want to take a walk with you."

He put his hands on his hips, cocked his head and gave her that look…the one that said 'I know you're up to something.' "We've been together way to long for you to pull anything over on me. I can read you better than Asgard text."

"Silly, well of course you can. But I can read you just as well. So come with me my curious archeologist." She grinned, shrugging her shoulders.

He took her hand and let her lead him off to whatever she had up her lovely sleeve. "An afternoon tryst in the hanger bay?" He asked hopefully.

"Good idea. But no."

"Found something new? You always amaze me with your wanderings and discoveries."

"Hmmm, maybe I did find something, but Sam claimed it. Then Mitchell insisted it was his, before Teal'c got a hold of it. But I stole it back from him!"

They walked the long desolate and familiar halls hand in hand. "What was it?"

"What?"

"What you found."

She let go of his hand and started walking backwards, watching him and grinning that wide toothed grin, eyes opening wide and eyebrows rising. "Well I thought it odd that there was box sitting all alone in one of the crew quarters, as if someone had left something behind. So --- well, no one around to claim it and since they would probably never get it back I opened it."

She turned forward, grabbing his hand again and pulling him along toward the hanger bay.

He was smiling at her antics, "and?"

"And what?" She looked back over her shoulder at him, face expressionless.

"What was in the box?" He stopped, yanking her hand and bringing her against his chest, "What was it?"

"I'll show you. It's in the hanger bay." She was looking up into his adorable eyes. God she loved this man. She sighed and accepted his quick kiss.

"Okay, let's go to the hanger bay." Again she took his hand and pulled him along.

Vala was laughing and tugging and he was resisting playfully. She could make him so happy with such silly things. It felt good to be in love still after all these years. He couldn't begin to imagine how life would be without her. Life anywhere. If every cloud – being trapped on this god awful ship – had a silver lining, then Vala was that. Would their life have taken this turn if they'd gotten back home?

She stopped at the hanger door. "Close your eyes, darling."

He did. "What's in the box Vala?"

"You'll see."

"Not with my eyes closed I won't."

She opened the door and lead him in.

"SURPRISE!" Cam, Hank, Teal'c and Sam yelled together. Poppers and streamers assaulted him and he grinned.

"Happy birthday, old man!" Mitchell patted him on the back.

"We have cake, DanielJackson, in celebration of your many long years."

Sam kissed him on the mouth. "Happy 'over the hill' Daniel."

Hank just shook his hand and then handed him a child's paper birthday hat.

"Light the candles Teal'c," Vala instructed and the Jaffa light the fifty candles on the cake.

"We have a fire extinguisher just in case, Jackson." Mitchell laughed.

Daniel turned to Vala. "Okay, you got me. And it is my birthday, somewhere anyway." He pulled her against his side, wrapping an arm around her waist, hugging her close. Mitchell turned on some old Rock and Roll CD he'd brought along, one they'd heard a hundred times or more, but it sounded great today in the echoing space of the hanger.

Daniel blew out the candles. "Thanks guys, really, this is nice."

They ate, and danced and laughed for hours. It'd been a while since they'd shared good times together. Sometimes they'd gone days without even speaking to each other in the gloom of the Odyssey. It felt right to be once again in each others company just for the fun of it.

They each had given him some crazy gift that no doubt Sam had conjured up from the Asgard replicator. He laughed at each of them and played along with their "old man" jokes. He didn't feel old. Not today.

At last Vala gave him the box she'd found. It wasn't wrapped. Just a plain brown box. He opened it. Eyes lifting to her he asked, "You found this?"

She nodded. "Really. It was in one of the officer's quarters. I suppose you can translate it? It's Greek isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. Odússeia. The Odyssey by Homer." He opened the book and began to read it aloud.

"_Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them."_

END


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